Newsletter

Surveillance planes bust huge shipments of cocaine

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Two federal Custom and Border Protection surveillance planes based in Jacksonville have helped authorities seize two different shipments of cocaine totaling about $80 million.

The first plane was alerted to a suspicious aircraft from Venezuela while flying over Aruba on May 11. The surveillance plane tracked the aircraft to a remote airfield in Mexico.

Local authorities then seized the aircraft along with 2,640 pounds of cocaine worth about $24 million.

Another plane was patrolling the Caribbean Ocean near Nicaragua on May 18 when it spotted a boat loaded with barrels. The occupants of the boat fled to the Nicaragua/Honduras coast before they ran aground onshore and ditched the drugs.

The plane directed the U.S. Coast Guard to the abandoned boat, which was filled with 6,215 pounds of cocaine valued at about $56 million.